The video game industry can be a fairly predictable place. For example, if a big title (often referred to as a “AAA” release) is announced for release later in the year, you can almost bet it will ship in October, November or December. If new hardware is launched, you can bet that at least 50% of the titles available for it on day one will be sloppy ports of existing games. And if a blockbuster action or children’s film debuts, it’s almost a certainty that there will be a slew of tie-in games available for almost every system out there.

Licensing is big business in the world of video gaming, especially around the holidays. And there’s a pretty good reason for it: the majority of gamers (or people purchasing for gamers) are what the industry refers to as “casual gamers,” and they’re more likely to buy something that sounds familiar than they are to try something new. It’s very difficult to build up a AAA intellectual property in the gaming industry, and though series like Halo, The Legend of Zelda, Grand Theft Auto and Final Fantasy have managed to pull it off consistently, the majority of games struggle to keep themselves on the retail radar at all. Licenses help drive retailer orders, and having a movie tie-in title available a month before the film debuts can really help improve sales.

What’s peculiar about the success of licensed video games is that they’re almost always bad. Every now and then, a good licensed game, like The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic hits shelves and demonstrates the power of licensing. But more often than not, licensed games are awful. For example, this summer’s Iron Man games were consistently a poor crop of games, regardless of platform. The same could be said for the Wall-E tie-in games and the Hellboy game. And yet most of these games likely moved more copies than many good games that didn’t have a license behind them.

The comic book industry, on the other hand, has a fairly dismal record when it comes to taking licenses and turning them into profit. Certainly, there have been a few success stories; Dreamwave did well in the early part of the decade with Transformers, and Marvel certainly earned some attention for Stephen King’s The Dark Tower and a project I’m all-too familiar with, Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter. But for the most part, the industry has done a terrible job with licensing, both from a production and a marketing point of view. And thus it’s worth a few moments to consider why licensed products are so lucrative for the video game industry despite their low quality, while licensed products are only somewhat lucrative in the comic book industry despite the seeming demand for them.

Let’s start by talking about one of the biggest differences between video game buyers and comic book buyers: gift giving. In the comic book industry, consumers tend to purchase for one of two reasons: reading or collecting. Few comic book fans buy books for friends or family, mainly because comics don’t make very good gifts. Even graphic novels, which are still the fastest growing sector of the comic book industry, aren’t particularly sought after as gift items.

But video games, on the other hand, are often developed with the fourth quarter (October - December) in mind.The reasoning behind this is that parents are out looking for gifts, and they are more likely to purchase something that is familiar for their children than something that is unknown. That latest Bratz game may be awful, but a mother might buy it for her 10-year-old daughter on the basis of the license because she knows that her daughter loves the dolls. Quality is not an issue with licensed games; as long as the license is popular enough to warrant recognition, a licensed game has a much better chance of being purchased by a casual gamer or gift buyer than an original title does.

Many of the big releases throughout the rest of the year are tie-ins with other entertainment media. Games are often released with blockbuster films and animated features, but it’s not uncommon to see a game based on a nostalgia license like The Godfather, The Warriors or Scarface hit around the same time that the associated property is being re-released on DVD.

And licenses don’t just extend to films, either. Activision and MTV Games are both making big money right now by licensing music for games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. EA Sports makes a killing off its sports licenses, and EA, Sony and Microsoft Games have all done quite well with racing games that license makes and models of popular cars. Buena Vista Games regularly releases handheld games based off Disney Channel shows, and companies like D3 Publishing, THQ and Southpeak interactive often scoop up the rights to childrens’ television shows. Atari even recently released a Nintendo DS title called What’s Cooking With Jamie Oliver.

Comic books, of course, have been a popular source of licenses, and Marvel and DC have both seen many video games come out associated with their superheroes. But there have also been games based off UK comics like Judge Dredd, Doom Patrol and Rogue Trooper, a game based off the European espionage thriller XIII, a game based off the Hellboy comics, a game based off the Spawn comics, and a game based off The Red Star, just to name a few. Even newspaper strips and webcomics have been licensed to create games like Snoopy vs. the Red Baron and the Penny Arcade adventures.

As a store manager for a prominent game store, I often found myself annoyed that customers would give bad licensed games serious thought while ignoring good original games in the meantime. Once I began to study marketing, however, I realized that this is exactly how most purchases are made. Our minds are lazy, and stores are often overwhelming with the number of choices available. It’s only natural that our brains will seize on the things that are familiar rather than allow us to consider all of the alternatives equally.

The video game industry realizes this psychology, and that’s exactly why so many licensed games crop up year in, year out despite the fact that they’re almost always panned by critics and made fun of by hardcore gamers. Licensed games sell in spite of themselves. One of the first big releases that came out when I was working as a game store manager was Atari’s Enter the Matrix, a tie-in to the film The Matrix Reloaded. The game was horribly rushed, and parts of it were almost unplayable due to bugs and glitches. The word was out before the game even arrived on shelves that it was a mess. And yet it sold like crazy.

Oddly, this sort of thinking does not seem to translate quite so well to the comic book industry. Don’t get me wrong here; if you browse the top 300, you’ll see that most of the books that aren’t related to Marvel and DC superheroes are licensed, and publishers like Dark Horse, IDW, Dynamite, Devil’s Due and Udon have all established niches for themselves by focusing on licensed properties. But with the exception of the occasional Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or G.I. Joe license that manages to attract a regular audience, most licensed books don’t fare too well in the marketplace. Comic book readers don’t seem overly enthusiastic about buying them, and comic book retailers don’t seem to be overly enthusiastic about carrying them, despite the fact that they often carry associated merchandise!

I would suggest that there are three reasons licensed products don’t perform as well in the comic book industry as they do in the video game industry:

1) The comic book industry is built on superheroes. Marvel and DC command around 80% of the market share, and while both do put out licensed books from time to time, their original properties are what you’ll find dominating month after month on the sales charts. Retailers are more likely to order superhero titles than any other kind of book, because that’s what they know will sell. Collectors are more likely to buy superhero titles than any other kind of book, because that’s what they know will be worth collecting. Licensed properties typically don’t have a high collectible value unless they’re associated with a major license like Star Wars, and even then, it’s the toys that people are usually after, not the comics.

2) Licensed books are not usually promoted well. Aside from the occasional odd newspaper article about a book like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Family Guy, most comic book promotion remains within the comic book industry. Publishers typically do a terrible job of promoting their books outside the comic book press, and they suffer the consequences with mediocre sales (often below 10,000 copies).

I know this all too well since I was in charge of marketing for the Dabel Brothers for six years — we had a horrible time promoting some of our licensed books because we had no idea how to talk to people outside of comics. By the time I figured things out, I was working on the promotion plan for the Anita Blake books. They did really well when I was managing them, because I built up a story about how retailers were contacting us and saying that the book was bringing girls who’d never set foot in a comic book stoe before into their shops to pre-order. The story was true, of course, but a little bit of added hype allowed me to talk about how the book was “breathing new life into the world of comics.” Everyone wanted a piece of that.

At the same time, however, we had people talking directly to fans on message boards and forums to gain their support for the book. We gave them sneak peaks of artwork and asked for critiques. My wife, who adapted the first five issues, even made friends with many of the more prominent fans and promised to sign their books in exchange for their support. Before we transferred the book over to Marvel, I was told that the sales were just under 40,000 copies for the first printing. Excluding the graphic novel sales, the first issue sold over 60,000 copies across three printings, and the second, third and fourth issues weren’t far behind. (The series is not doing nearly that volume now since it’s not being promoted actively.)

I don’t think there was anything special about Anita Blake. I think any licensed book with a dedicated existing fanbase could achieve those numbers quite easily. I just don’t think publishers do a very good job of convincing fans to buy.

3) Comic books make lousy gifts. Parents don’t go to comic book stores looking for presents unless they know specifically what to buy. And why should they? Comic book stores are often unfriendly places that are full of longboxes and overpriced action figures. A lot of comics aren’t “kid-friendly,” and even those that are aren’t a good substitute for a toy or a video game. Comic book retailers are unlike just about every other retailer in the retail sector; they don’t worry much about the day after Thanksgiving, and they don’t rely on the fourth quarter for 50-60% of their annual sales. Some get a slight boost from the holidays, but for most, it’s business as usual.

When you add in the fact that most of the sought-after comics are available in graphic novel format and easily purchased online or in a bookstore, it’s clear that the comic book industry is not built to take advantage of the holidays. And since that’s when licensed products are a great option for gift-givers, it’s no wonder that licensed comics don’t achieve a high level of sales — they miss the chance to climb onboard the annual gravy train!

What can we learn from all of this? Since the days of the Atari, the video game industry has always had its eye on the fourth quarter because that’s when hardware (and subsequently, software) is sold in volume. The comic book industry, on the other hand, has its roots in subscription models, and it’s been reluctant to shed its old ways so that it can catch up with the rest of the retail sector. One of the most unfortunate things that happened to the comic book industry was the 1990s; the speculation boom made a lot of retailers short-term profits, and many of them seem to be waiting for another speculator era to resurface so they can make bank and retire.

Unfortunately, many retailers are in a position where they’re going to have to change or die in the long run. Licensed books could be a wonderful way to add a rich dessert to the bread-and-butter sales of superhero books. But the industry doesn’t know how to make them work, and thus 100,000 copy sellers like Dreamwave’s Transformers and Marvel’s The Dark Tower are seen as flukes rather than targets. It’s too bad; if the industry could get behind licensed books more effectively, comics might be able to break away from their current “superheroes only” image and find bigger and better audiences.

My next article on this topic will focus on hardware cycles. This might not seem to have a lot to do with comics, but bear with me — there are some interesting parallels!

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